Steal This Startup Idea

This week has been Hell. Necessary Hell, but Hell. Filling out application after application for incubator programs is inducing PTSD-esque flashbacks to the college acceptance process and I'm ready to get back to coding. Now, if you haven't already noticed, I'm not overly keen on this aspect of creating a startup and it's got me wondering. Feel free to steal this idea anyone, but be a pal and give me some equity if you do. What if there was a startup dedicated to getting startups accepted into incubators? Meta, I know! Let's examine this idea for a bit, shall we? What am I saying? It's not up to you. I'm writing and am thus you're brave, strong, and handsome guide, so we're examining it...damnit.

In this post I'm going to pose some open ended questions that, if you'd like, you can email me your answers to (steinbach.rj@gmail.com for the uninitiated). Let's call our new service....incubated (original, eh?). Now say a startup, for instance Backstep, lands on the site. The initial questions we must answer for the Backstep representative are: What is this place? What does this service do? Is this a scam, should I GTFO? So in essence, we must establish our credibility.

Q:What can we do to establish our credibility?

what we don't want the site visitor's reaction to be

Now assume we've somehow convinced Backstep that our site is credible, that we can in fact help them get into Y Combinator. The next thing we'll need from Backstep is information about their company in order to craft the incubator application. However, the trickiness in this part is getting that information without forcing the user to answer the same questions they would in an incubator application. Here are some examples of common questions asked in incubator applications:

What is the business model? How will you make money?

Who are your competitors? Provide links.

What makes your company unique? What is your competitive advantage.

Describe your team, what is something impressive they've achieved or built in the past?

etc, etc, etc.

Q:How do we answer these questions without overwhelming the user?

Finally, let's assume that everything has worked out handily up to this point. Backstep trusts us and they've given us the info we need to fill out their incubator applications. Now for the most important question in any business.

Q:How do we make money? Do we take equity? Fixed Fee?

Us after our first sale

So steal my idea. Seriously, do it. I want you to follow this 3 step process: